Smartphone Charging Tips: How To Reenergize Gadget Fast

A fully charged smartphone is always better to take outside the house compared one that has a little battery left. Fully charged smartphones stay on longer, allow for more calls, texts and browsing and will help users stay connected longer than smartphones with less than 50 percent battery charge do.

Getting that smartphone charged faster, however, goes beyond getting that fast charger and plugging it into a wall outlet, Gizmodo reported. Smartphone users have to know a few things that will help them find ways to reenergize their phones faster.

Basics of fast charging

Fast charging basically involves a few things: a smartphone’s power requirements (in volts), its capacity to receive a specific power current (in amps or milliamps), and a power adapter’s capacity to deliver power to that smartphone (in watts). Watts are calculated by taking volts and multiplying it by amps.

A power adapter with higher watt rating will charge smartphones faster than those with lower wattage ratings. Thus, it follows that an 18W Apple charger will charge an iPhone XR faster than a 5W Apple charger.

Some older smartphones, however, do not support fast charging and are only designed to be charged with the supplied chargers, i.e. 5W adapters. Charging these devices with 18W chargers, or stronger, will not result in a faster charge. Worse, these devices might burn.

So how can a smartphone user charge his or her phone faster? Here are a few tips.

Choose the right charger

As mentioned, chargers with higher wattage can reenergize devices faster. Those who use smartphones offering support for fast charging can use 18W chargers.

Those who use an iPhone X and newer can use an 18W USB-C charger to power their smartphones quickly, MacRumors said. Using a 29W, 30W or 89W USB-C charger to charge an iPhone X will get the same results as when using an 18W charger.

Stick to the Smartphone brand as much as possible

Certain brands offer specialized fast charging technology that works only on their devices. OnePlus, for example, uses its own proprietary fast charging technology CEO Pete Lau is proud of, CNET reported. By using a different charger brand, such as Anker, users won’t be able to take advantage of the fast charging tech OnePlus has.

Turn phone or features off

Lastly, smartphone users can simply turn the phone off while charging. If it should be kept on, turning Wi-Fi, cellular data, and other unnecessary functions off can help juice the phone up faster.